Day of Care: Appeals from Organizations

As every year, the Day of Care on May 12 aims to highlight the topic of care and problem areas such as the shortage of skilled workers, an aging population, and the burdens on staff. The specific date was chosen due to the birthday of nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale (1820-1910). This year, too, the demands and appeals are manifold.

Integrated Approach and Migration

For example, Caritas called for an integrated approach - that is, to think of care and health services as one. Currently, there is a lack of coordinated transitions, digital networking, and clear responsibility along the supply chain, it was stated in a release. Medical treatment, mobile care, home care, day centers, short-term and residential care must seamlessly interlock. If one level of care is no longer sufficient, the next appropriate level must be activated without bureaucratic hurdles.

Malteser Care, on the other hand, considers targeted and qualified immigration of skilled workers from abroad to be "essential". Previous measures such as increasing training places or the nursing apprenticeship are far from sufficient to meet the demand for nursing staff. Unfortunately, none of the numerous announced facilitations in the recognition of qualified training from third countries have progressed at all, it was stated in a release.

Working Conditions in Care

The working conditions of the approximately 180,000 members of the nursing professions were naturally the focus of the Chamber of Labor (AK) and the Austrian Trade Union Federation (ÖGB): There is an urgent need for improvements in working conditions such as more staff, better planning, and a balanced relationship between leisure and work, as well as adequate livelihood security during training, according to the AK in a release. Similarly, the ÖGB also called for uniform standards throughout Austria as well as a nationwide expansion of mobile services, palliative care facilities, and day care facilities.

The Chamber of Commerce, in turn, also wants to focus on personal caregivers. It reminded of the long-standing demand to increase state funding for 24-hour care from 800 to 1,450 euros per month. Additionally, the income limit for the full receipt of funding, which has been at 2,500 euros since 2007, must finally be adjusted for inflation.

Greens Criticize

The parties also spoke up: ÖVP, SPÖ, and NEOS reminded of the government's plan to recognize care work more easily as heavy labor. For the Greens, these are just "placebos" - they further demanded, among other things, a reduction in working hours with full wage compensation as well as nationwide uniform, improved care ratios and salaries.

In the federal states, various actions and rallies for improvements in the care and health sector are taking place on Monday.

Protest in Tyrol

In the federal states, various actions and rallies for improvements in the care and health sector took place on Monday. For example, in Tyrol's state capital Innsbruck, where several hundred care workers gathered in the afternoon for a demonstration or protest march near the Olympiaworld - organized by the unions Public Service (GÖD), GPA, younion, and vida Tyrol, together with the state ÖGB and the Tyrolean Chamber of Labor. The participants marched in a roundabout - to illustrate that with the demands on politics at the state and federal level, they have been going in circles for years. There is an "acute emergency in all areas," the care, health, and social system is threatening to collapse, was among the sentiments expressed by the black AK President Erwin Zangerl and ÖGB state leader Sonja-Föger Kalchschmied (SPÖ) at a press conference earlier.

Speaking of the Chamber of Labor: It criticized the different remuneration systems of the state-owned Tyrol clinics in care and announced a lawsuit. Even downgrades for employees in the new salary scheme are being made. The Tyrol clinics, however, stated to the APA that they are in constructive exchange with the Chamber of Labor in this regard. "We are currently in the process of finalizing the internal review of the underlying facts," it was said.

(APA/Red)

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